The present disclosure relates to a control device for controlling a vehicle drive system in which a first engagement device, a rotating electric machine, and a second engagement device are provided in a power transfer path connecting an internal combustion engine to wheels and are arranged sequentially from the internal combustion engine side.
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2013-47062 discloses a control device such as the one described above. Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2013-47062 discloses a technique for reducing shock caused by a reversal of the direction of a torque transferred to wheels while a vehicle travels on the torque of a rotating electric machine transferred to the wheels alone. Specifically, for a structure that starts an internal combustion engine when travel power that the vehicle needs reaches or exceeds a threshold value, the threshold value is set greater than a value optimized in terms of fuel economy of the internal combustion engine so that the internal combustion engine gets hard to start. This is intended to reduce the shock by making it less likely that when the vehicle changes from a deceleration state to an acceleration state, the timing of when the direction of the torque transferred to the wheels is reversed will coincide with the timing of when the internal combustion engine is started, which causes a sudden increase in the torque transferred to the wheels.